Experts criticize Perry's linking of homosexuality to alcoholism

Updated 8:43 pm, Thursday, June 12, 2014

Texas Gov. Rick Perry adjusts his glasses during an event with the Commonwealth Club of California at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry adjusts his glasses during an event with the Commonwealth Club of California at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Kevin N. Hume, The Chronicle

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry listens during an event with the Commonwealth Club of California at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry listens during an event with the Commonwealth Club of California at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Kevin N. Hume, The Chronicle

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Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and national issues than his political legacy at home. (AP Photo/Rex C. Curry) less

Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and ... more

Photo: Rex C. Curry, Associated Press

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Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and national issues than his political legacy at home. (AP Photo/Rex C. Curry) less

Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and ... more

Photo: Rex C. Curry, Associated Press

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"We're too good a country to wander through the wilderness of economic darkness. We must seize our promise at home," said Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday.

"We're too good a country to wander through the wilderness of economic darkness. We must seize our promise at home," said Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday.

Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and national issues than his political legacy at home. (AP Photo/Rex C. Curry) less

Gov. Rick Perry gives a speech during the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, June, 5, 2014. In his address, the longest-serving governor in the state's history focused more on the future and ... more

"Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that," Perry said. "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way."

The comparison is incorrect, according to the medical community.

"It's not accurate and it's not a reasonable conclusion that the world of medicine and psychiatry would endorse," said Dr. John Oldham, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. Oldham also is chief of staff and senior vice president at the Menninger Clinic.

"Alcoholism is a form of addiction, which is an illness," Oldham said. "Sexual orientation is not an illness."

Defining homosexuality that way is simply outdated, he said.

"Many decades ago, in the diagnostic manual it was listed as a condition thought to be an illness," Oldham said. "We've learned since that that was wrong."

The governor's comment came after he was asked about the Texas Republican Party's new platform that supports "reparative therapy" for gays and lesbians, a process aimed at changing sexual orientation. Pressed to say whether he thought homosexuality could be cured by prayer or counseling, Perry responded, "I don't know. I'm not a psychiatrist; I'm not a doctor."

The idea of changing someone's sexual orientation throughtherapy has been "entirely debunked," Oldham said. "Reparative therapy is not a legitimate therapy and, in fact, it can be destructive."

To seek therapy to change one's sexual orientation, he said, "would be like saying, 'I would really like to get reparative therapy because I don't like being short.' "

No LGBT cure needed

A spokeswoman for a Houston organization that works with the gay community and with substance abuse said homosexuality does not need a cure.

"Our expertise is learning what triggers addiction," said Sally Huffer, community projects specialist at The Montrose Center, which has offered behavioral health services to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community since 1978.

"In many cases, it is the disenfranchisement of being LGBT - feeling alone, not having the pillars or support others might have, or the coping skills," Huffer said.

"Some people choose to use alcohol and drugs to medicate pain. The difference is that alcoholism can be a destructive disorder that can ruin lives and lead to death," she said. "But being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is not abnormal; it does not need a cure. It, in and of itself, does not ruin lives. People live normal, happy, healthy, productive lives as openly LGBT people."

Labeled 'junk science'

When Perry implies that homosexuality is a disorder, Huffer added, he is focusing too much on the sex part of homosexuality.

"You wouldn't say that a marriage between a man and a woman is all about what happens behind closed doors," she said.

Bryan Hlavinka, who co-hosts the weekly radio show "Queer Voices" on KPFT-FM (90.1), called Perry's remarks damaging and "junk science."

"I think it's very offensive that he compared being gay to a disease," said Hlavinka, an LGBT rights advocate.

Perry's position as governor means his words carry more weight with the public, Hlavinka suggested, whether his theories are true or not.

"(Perry's) in a position where if he says something like that, people are going to believe him," Hlavinka said. "It's dangerous for him to say that."